Archive | July, 2015

New Delhi, Jul 31 (PTI) The stalemate in Rajya Sabha continued today with opposition Congress remaining adamant on its demand for resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the government outrightly rejecting it.

The Upper House witnessed uproarious scenes with opposition and treasury benches trading charges against each other, leading to two adjournments during the Zero Hour and the Question Hour.

Soon after the House assembled for the day and obituary references were made, Congress members stood in the aisle and raised slogans seeking action against Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje for allegedly helping controversial former IPL head Lalit Modi and Chouhan for the Vyapam scam, forcing Deputy Chairman P J Kurien to adjourn the House till noon.

Similar scenes were witnessed when the House met again for the Question Hour as there was no let up in the Congress demand for the resignations, with the government slamming them for making “baseless allegations” and making it clear that there was no question of agreeing to their demands.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad moved a motion that proceedings of the House be adjourned and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should come to the House and tell what action he has taken to ensure the resignation of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister in the Vyapam scam.

“The business of the House should be adjourned and the Prime Minister should come to the House and tell us what action he has taken for resignation of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister in the Vyapam scam. If Prime Minister comes and announces resignation, then we will listen,” he said.

Rejecting the demand, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the opposition members were disrupting the proceedings every day on the same issue even though the government has made it clear that it was ready for a discussion.

But “nobody will resign, we have said it many times. Modi government will not act on baseless allegations,” Naqvi said.

Pune, Jul 31 (PTI) Lending his support to students agitating at the Film and Television Institute here against appointment of Gajendra Chauhan, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today said the RSS is “undermining” the institution’s stature by promoting “mediocrity”.

Interacting with the students, the Congress Vice President asked why the “little school” was “disturbing” the government’s peace of mind and flayed the RSS, saying it wants to promote its idea and would brand the protesting students as “anti-national”.

“RSS and its ideologues are systematically promoting mediocre people in the system…they are hell bent on undermining the educational institutions’ stature…it is not going on just in the education system but also in bureaucratic and judicial system.

“Why is that a little school with around 250 students is disturbing the government’s peace of mind. If students don’t want him (Gajendra Chauhan), then he clearly should not be there. This is an attempt to bully you,” he said during an an open session with the protesting students.

He assured the students that he would raise their voice in Parliament.

“RSS wants to promote their idea. They will call you anti-national, anti-Hindu. They are scared of you. That is the nature of a bully,” he said.

FTII students have been on strike for the past 50 days objecting to appointment of TV actor Chauhan as institution’s chairman.

Gandhi also used the platform to draw comparisons between the Congress and the BJP regime saying, “In Congress whenever there is an issue, it is discussed…some agree some don’t.

But in BJP if the Prime Minister has decided, no one can say anything”.

Earlier this month, the students body had written to leaders from various political parties requesting them to intervene and urge the government to revoke the appointments of ‘unfit’ people and to set up a transparent procedure for future appointments. .

Gurdaspur, Jul 27 (PTI) In a suspected terror attack, gunmen wearing army uniform today went on a rampage attacking a bus, a health centre and a police station, leaving five persons, including a policeman, dead and several injured in Gurdaspur district of Punjab.

Army has launched an operation against the militants numbering about five who are holed up in Dinanagar police station complex.

The assailants also targeted a building where the families of police personnel reside and threw grenades.

According to police, the mayhem started at about 5 AM when the attackers first targeted a roadside eatery and took off in a car after killing a person who was sleeping near Dinanagar bypass.

They opened fire on a moving bus, in which four passengers were injured, they said.

They also targeted a community health centre adjacent Dinanagar police station, in which a policeman and three civilians including a woman who were present in the premises were killed.

The gunmen entered the Dinanagar police station and opened fire on policemen there in which five policemen were seriously injured.

They then targeted other part of the building where the families of police personnel reside.

Mumbai, Jul 26 (PTI) Bollywood superstar Salman Khan today created a storm by describing Yakub Memon, the Mumbai blasts convict scheduled to be hanged on July 30, as innocent but was forced to withdraw his tweets and tender unconditional apology following outrage from political parties and social media.

Basking in the glory of his film Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s success, the 49-year-old actor posted about a dozen tweets from about 2 am early today in which he said the wrong man is being hung for the crimes of his brother Tiger Memon who was described by the actor as a ‘lomdi’(fox) who ran away.

“Get tiger(Tiger Memon), hang him. Parade him not his brother,” the actor had tweeted. Tiger Memon, who is believed to be in Pakistan, is one of the prime suspects in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts that killed 257 people and injured 1,400.

Khan said he had been wanting to tweet about the issue for some days but was afraid.

“Been wanting to tweet Tis fr 3 days n was afraid to do so but it involves a man’s n family. Don’t hang brother hang tha lomdi (fox) who ran away,” he tweeted.

“1 innocent man killed is killing the humanity,” the actor said.

As his tweets sparked a furore and were dubbed as “objectionable” and also led to protests by BJP workers outside Khan’s residence in suburban Bandra, BJP and ally Shiv Sena demanded cancellation of the actor’s bail in the 2002 hit-and-run case. A Shiv Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande even called Khan anti-national.

Ujjwal Nikam, the special prosecutor in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, took a strong exception to Khan’s tweets in defence of Yakub, and said the actor must withdraw them.

Speaking to PTI, Nikam said, “Tweets made by Salman Khan are highly objectionable” and were an attempt to “undermine the image of the Indian Judiciary.”

TADA Judge P D Kode who sent Yakub to the gallows, said Khan’s tweets are his ‘opinion’ and that everyone has a right to his or her opinion as a right to freedom of speech but the question is how “relevant” it is.

Deleting his earlier tweets, Khan said that his father Salim Khan called him and said he should retract his tweets as they had the potential to create “misunderstanding”.

Salim, a veteran Bollywood scriptwriter, is quoted has having said that his son is “ignorant” of the issue and people should not take him seriously, describing the star’s earlier remarks as ridiculous and meaningless.

“My dad called & said I should retract my tweets as they have the potential to create misunderstanding. I hereby retract them.

I would like to unconditionally apologise for any misunderstanding I may have created unintentionally,” he said in a series of tweets in the evening.

Khan said he also strongly condemned those who are claiming his tweets are “anti-religious”, adding, “I have always said I respect all faiths and I always will.”

“I had tweeted that Tiger Memon should hang for his crimes and I stand by it. What i also said is that Yakub Memon should not hang for him.

I have not said or implied that Yakub Memon is innocent.

I have complete faith in the judicial system of our country.

“Many lives were lost in the Mumbai blasts. And I have repeatedly said the loss of one innocent life is equal to the loss of all humanity,” he said.

Ahmedabad, Jul 27 (PTI) The Gujarat High Court today condoned the delay in filing a plea by social activist Teesta Setalwad to defreeze her bank accounts in the alleged fund embezzlement case and fixed the next hearing on August 5.

Last month Setalwad had moved the plea to defreeze her bank accounts in an alleged embezzlement case wherein she had allegedly collected Rs 1.51 crore from national and international donors promising to convert Gulberg Society to a 2002 riots museum, but allegedly spent money for personal purposes.

The city crime branch had frozen the bank accounts of Setlavad, her husband Javed Anand and two of their NGOs’ accounts after they began probe into the embezzlement case filed by a former resident of Gulberg Society last year.

They had challenged the order of a city metropolitan court, which had rejected their pleas to defreeze the bank accounts in November 2014.

However, as the plea was filed 90 days after the order was given, the applicant filed to condone the delay.

During the hearing today, Teesta’s lawyer Kalpesh Shastri contended that the delay in filing the application was caused mainly because his client was busy trying for anticipatory bail from the Supreme Court.

Justice Sonia Gokani took into account these explanations and admitted the application. The next hearing has been fixed on August 5.

Srinagar, Jul 25 (PTI) Three persons were killed and 19 others injured after a cloudburst struck near the base camp of Amarnath yatra along the shorter 16-km Baltal route to the cave shrine in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, officials said today.

Two other persons are missing after the cloudburst last night.

However, the yatra is going on smoothly from the arduous track along with the traditional 45-km Pahalgam route in Anantnag district, the officials said.

Authorities have allowed over 1000 pilgrims to proceed towards the shrine from the Baltal base camp.

“So far three bodies were recovered which include that of a girl, aged 13 and a boy, aged 12. At least 19 others have sustained injuries and two have gone missing,” the official said.

“The cloudburst struck near the Baltal base camp and water entered some tents there,” the officials said, adding those present at the camp were moved to safety after the cloudburst.

The officials said the deceased persons were not pilgrims but were camping at Baltal to earn their livelihood.

The officials identified them as cobbler Deepak Kumar (35) of Delhi and shoeshiners Pooja and Vikram, both residents of Rajasthan.

In the morning, 11 persons were reported missing but majority of them reported to the base hospital. One of them was found in a critical condition and was taken to Srinagar for specialised treatment, the officials said.

They said two persons are still reported missing and efforts are on to trace them.

In a series of tweets, Swaraj, who is facing ire of the Opposition led by Congress which is demanding her resignation for helping Modi get travel documents, said it was “absolutely false” that she spoke to Keith Vaz, the British Labour MP, to allow British government to let the former IPL Commissioner travel.

“I am saying this time and again that I never requested or recommended travel documents for Lalit Modi,” she said.

In another tweet, the minister said, “As a Minister I am accountable to Parliament. That is the only forum to inform the nation.”

On her earlier tweets when the controversy broke out where she had maintained that her gesture was based on humanitarian ground, Swaraj said, “I left this to the UK Government to decide under their own laws and regulations. And that is what they did.”

“Yes I tweeted this on day one. Yet they spread falsehood …. I help people every day. That too on a single tweet….

The lady is suffering from cancer for the last 17 years. This was the 10th recurrence of cancer,” she tweeted.

Reiterating her stand, she said, “I accepted a debate on the very first day of Parliament session. Congress members are not allowing a debate.

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) Parliament’s proceedings in the first week of the Monsoon Session were completely washed out, with both Houses adjourning today till Monday without transacting any business as the deadlock between the opposition and the ruling party persisted over issues like the Lalit Modi controversy and the Vyapam scam.

The opposition, led by the Congress, remained unrelenting on its demand for the resignation of Union Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister for allegedly helping controversial former IPL chief Lalit Modi and of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over the Vyapam admission and recruitment scam.

Countering the opposition charge, the BJP members too raised slogans and got into heated exchanges with Congress MPs inside the House, after holding a protest against the opposition at the Parliament’s main gate this morning.

In the Lok Sabha, the opposition’s slogan-shouting and counter-sloganeering by the BJP members led to the House being adjourned for the day, minutes after it had assembled at 11 AM. Congress members, waving placards, trooped into the Well just as the Question Hour was taken up.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan angrily said “You don’t want to raise issues…you don’t want to take part in the proceedings” and adjourned the House for the day within five minutes after it had assembled.

No business has been transacted since the session began on July 21, with both Houses witnessing adjournments after adjournments following sloganeering and verbal exchanges between the ruling and opposition sides.

Even the papers listed for the day in Lok Sabha were not tabled as scheduled at noon every day. Two bills — the Delhi High Court (Amendment) Bill and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, were also listed today for consideration and passage.

In the Rajya Sabha, heated exchanges between treasury benches and the Congress forced its adjournment twice, before it was adjourned for the day.

Congress and BJP members clashed after Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad blamed the ruling party of being a “stumbling block” in the functioning of Parliament.

“Rahul Gandhi using these words is very unfortunate, undemocratic. And because of these words, I am demanding that Rahul Gandhi should make an apology to the country because it is not only defaming Sushma Swaraj, but defaming the Foreign Minister of the country, who is the representative of India in the world,” Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said.

“If Rahul Gandhi does not apologise, then it is a serious problem. We will have to file criminal defamation case against him,” the BJP leader said while describing Gandhi’s remarks against Swaraj as “childish” and “immature politics”.

Stressing that allegations against Swaraj were “baseless”, he said that she had not violated the law, constitution or indulged in any corrupt activities.

“Allegations against Sushma Swaraj are all are baseless.

She has neither violated any law nor our constitution. She has not indulged in any corrupt or illegal activity. She is a very prominent leader of the country,” Gadkari said.

Speaking on the Lalit Modi controversy, Gandhi had said, “What we have said is that (there will be) no discussion without resignation. Sushma has done a criminal act. He (Lalit Modi) is a ‘fugitive’. You have signed it (the recommendation for grant of travel document). The High Commission does not know about it. The Indian government too in unaware of that.